Clog

Clogs are a type of footwear made in part or completely from wood. Clogs are used worldwide and although the form may vary by culture, within a culture the form often remained unchanged for centuries.

Traditional clogs remain in use as protective footware in agriculture and in some factories and mines. Although clogs are sometimes negatively associated with cheap and folkloric footwear of farmers and the working class, some types of clogs are considered as fashion wear today, such as Swedish Träskor or Japanese geta.

Clogs are also used in several different styles of dance. When worn for dancing an important feature is the sound of the clog against the floor. This is one of the fundamental roots of tap, but with the tap shoes the taps are free to click against each other and produce different sound to clogs.

Types

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a clog as a "thick piece of wood", and later as a "wooden soled overshoe" and a "shoe with a thick wooden sole".

Welsh traditional clog maker Trefor Owen identified three main varieties of clogs: wooden upper, wooden soled and overshoes.

Runic calendar

A Runic calendar (also Rune staff or Runic Almanac) is a perpetual calendar based on the 19-year-long Metonic cycle of the Moon. Runic calendars were written on parchment or carved onto staves of wood, bone, or horn. The oldest one known, and the only one from the Middle Ages, is the Nyköping staff from Sweden, believed to date from the 13th century. Most of the several thousand which survive are wooden calendars dating from the 16th and the 17th centuries. During the 18th century, the Runic calendars had a renaissance, and around 1800, such calendars were made in the form of tobacco boxes in brass.

A typical Runic calendar consisted of several horizontal lines of symbols, one above the other.

Special days like solstices, equinoxes, and celebrations (including Christian holidays and feasts) were marked with additional lines of symbols.

The calendar does not rely on knowledge of the length of the tropical year or of the occurrence of leap years. It is set at the beginning of each year by observing the first full moon after the winter solstice. The first full moon also marked the date of Disting, a pagan feast and a fair day.

Clogs (band)

Clogs are a mostly instrumental project led by Bryce Dessner and Padma Newsome. Clogs have released five albums on Brassland Records -- Thom's Night Out (2001), Lullaby for Sue (2003), Stick Music (2004), Lantern (2006) and The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton (2010).

Formation

When Clogs formed they were an oddball classical ensemble in indie rock clothing. Today, however, they are at the forefront of a scene including friends in groups The Books, Rachel's, and Bell Orchestre.

The band members met in the late 1990s while studying at the Yale School of Music. Newsome, born in 1961 in Alice Springs, Australia, started his career as a concert violinist in the Sydney Symphony, before a six-year detour took him to an ashram in the remote region of New South Wales. He began composing in the 1990s at the University of Adelaide, when he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship that brought him to America. Dessner is an established soloist, and veteran of groups including Bang on a Can All-Stars, which has given him in contact with major figures like Philip Glass and Terry Riley. Elliott is a proud Vermonter and active freelance musician. Kozumplik is a master percussionist familiar with almost any style.